Bad Guys by Anthony Bruno

Title: Bad Guys

Author: Anthony Bruno

Publisher: Diversion Books

Release Date: January 28, 2014

Agent Mike Tozzi is tired of the bad guys getting away with murder. It seems that justice is not blind, unless you have connections, then it can’t see a thing. So he decides to even out the scales. Tozzi is tracking down the ones that got away. At the top of his list is the unknown man who murdered three undercover FBI agents and sent their severed heads back to the office. He has two problems. First, no one knows, or will say who the killer is or who he works for. Second, his old partner, Cuthbert Gibbons, has been brought out of retirement to bring him in.

Gibbons is a throwback to an earlier age. He still remembers the days when FBI agents hit the streets and did leg work. He spends his spare time catching up on his reading. His favorite subject is the history of Rome. It doesn’t take long for him to track down his old partner. Tozzi is able to persuade Gibbons to join him in his hunt for the killer. Against these two detectives is a shadowy underworld figure. No one seems to know the identity of the person who is pulling the strings since the leaders of some of the biggest crime families have 

This book is full of twists and turns and a lot of action. The story takes place in the mid-80s. The time of movies like Lethal Weapon and Die Hard. It has all of the classic elements. It’s a buddy story, it’s a cop story, it’s an action story. At the heart is the search for justice in a changing world. The old FBI of Hoover is giving way to a new agency full of career men who look to computers. The world of organized crime is changing as well. Old loyalties and alliances give way to upstarts who don’t like getting their hands dirty and don’t want to come up in the organization the old way.

This book is fast paced, well written, and a lot of fun. If you enjoy classic action stories then this book is for you. One of the great things about the digital age is that great books like these can be brought back in to print. I enjoyed this and look forward to reading the others in the series.